That sounded convincing and quite alarming at first. Then I got to the paragraph that started with "President George W. Bush understood..." and realized WTF I was reading. The next paragraph started with "Unfortunately, President Obama..."

"Van D. Hipp, Jr. is Chairman of American Defense International, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in government affairs, business development and public relations. He is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army and currently serves on Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union and The National Capitol Board of The Salvation Army."

Much like earnings reports, where all the useful information is tucked away in the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements, the best way to read any "call to arms" is by first scrolling to the end of the document, and then slowly working your way back up.

MrBallou:That sounded convincing and quite alarming at first. Then I got to the paragraph that started with "President George W. Bush understood..." and realized WTF I was reading. The next paragraph started with "Unfortunately, President Obama..."

Oh wait its Fox News, who are desperately craving a war with somebody since the war in Iraq is over and the war in Afghanistan is going to be over soon. So this story has less crdibility than an article in The Onion.

North Korea is a farking joke. They are to international security what the Jacksonville Jaguars are to the NFL, if the Jags were required to play without a quarterback and to have at least 8 long snappers on the field at all times. The greatest threat to their armed forces is farking starvation, and that's while they're at peace.

Bontesla:MrBallou: That sounded convincing and quite alarming at first. Then I got to the paragraph that started with "President George W. Bush understood..." and realized WTF I was reading. The next paragraph started with "Unfortunately, President Obama..."

I have a pretty good idea what came after that.

That's all the summary I need.Thank you for saving me time.

Me too. I really believe that these new conservatives won't really be happy until we're at war with every "bad guy" on the planet simultaneously, with most people of the middle and lower class either fighting it out in the mud "over there, so we won't have to fight them over here" or in a low income job in a munitions factory building weapons for the war effort, while the upper class get to bask happily in their lavish splendor! (no taxes on their income or their company's, because every cent has to be used to win "The War", and most of the taxes to fight it comes out of sales taxes) Anyone who fights against this gets called a traitor and sent to the nearest Jesus Camp to be brainwashed into thinking that it's "G-d's will" to fight against every "evildoer" out there (Atheist North Koreans worshiping the cult of personality Kim Jong family, Muslims in every country except Turkey (though eventually Turkey), and Russia, why? Because they killed Apollo Creed!), because that would be what Jesus would do, but it won't get you executed this time, just sent out on the front lines like a good lil Christian would! Just make sure to thank a rich person first that you're even alive, because he's a "job creator" and you wouldn't be going into the army if it wasn't for this person creating a job for you to fulfill by fighting and killing our new enemies of this week.

NewportBarGuy:Yet they don't have food for their people nor do they have enough fuel to mobilize their army.

The first job of such governments is neither to feed their people nor fuel their army. It is to stay in power against real or perceived enemies. The U.S. and Soviets both had plenty of hungry and homeless people during the Cold War but chose instead to build enough nukes to destroy each other many times over.

I'm not saying they're a modern, disciplined and funded military threat... but they're still an army, an army with the means to do some damage.

Grow up and stop thinking that a conflict with them could be won by a paintballing team.

The North Korea of 2013 is not the North Korea of 1953. They've gone to shiat since the Cold War ended.

They were propped up by subsidies from China and the USSR. They don't get much of either. They had millions die in the '90's during a famine.

They had to recently lower their height/weights standards for their army due to chronic malnutrition, since too many North Koreans were too short and too light for the military. . .so they lowered the standard.

They lack fuel for their vehicles. Ever seen the wood-gas burning trucks they have over there? They have wood-burning stoves driving 1950's era trucks. Yeah, what little fuel they do have is diverted to the military, but that's not enough to fight a war. They couldn't keep up around-the-clock air superiority operations, air mobility operations, or any other air ops, and any troop transports they'd have along the ground would have similar problems.

They lack spare parts and modernized military equipment. They are flying the finest Chinese/Soviet hardware of the 1960's and 1970's. I'd put a single F-15 or F-16 up against 4 or 5 of their fighters easily, simply based on superior radars, superior ECM, and superior missiles, not to mention better maneuverability if it became a dogfight. If the F-22 enters the battlefield, it becomes a turkey shoot.

The only thing NK has going for them is raw numbers. On paper they are the 4th largest army in the world. Don't forget, Iraq was too in 1990, in the lead-in to the Gulf War. Skeptics then had the same idea of it being a bloodly, drawn out war, but didn't take into account factors like morale, supplies, and the vast technical disparity between the modern US and a communist client state with 1960's and '70's technology.

In the event of a hot shooting war between NK and the rest of the world, the most likely course of events (assuming no nuclear exchange, which is a huge wild card) is:

1. NK opens fire with massive artillery barrage on Seoul. Seoul takes devastating losses, over 100,000 civilian casualties in the first few minutes.

2. NK begins massive human-wave style assault through the DMZ while the NK air force tries to provide air support.

4. Air superiority is quickly established by SK and the USA, as the NK air force lasts about as long as the Iraqi one did thanks to a combination of poorly trained pilots, obsolete and poorly maintained equipment, and lack of fuel. With air superiority established, close-air-support aircraft like the A-10 begin to decimate NK ground forces.

4a. Naval superiority established by US Navy through combination of overwhelming technology, numbers, and firepower. Most of the NK Navy sits on the bottom of the South China Sea and Sea of Japan within 72 hours of the start of hostilities.

5. NK ground assault stalls less than a hundred miles into SK. US/SK counterattack includes direct assaults on Pyongyang and other command centers thanks to US air superiority. Cruise missile and guided weapon attacks decimate the NK command, communications and control structure. Without unified C3 capability, NK strategically falls apart, and becomes entirely reliant on the tactical and leadership skills of junior officers and NCOs.

6. NK forces on brink of total collapse as allied forces push back. Brief delay while reinforcements mobilize from US. NK tries to use this time to regroup, but finds its own C3 elements virtually gone and its supply networks and infrastructure devastated. A steady pace of advance pushes past the 38th parallel and allied forces take Pyongyang within 7 days. NK is pushed back to the Yalu river. Large scale surrenders and defection plagues NK forces. Total surrender is possible once they are pushed far enough back, especially if Kim Jong Un is dead or captured by this point.

7. China keeps the hell out of it, aside from very strongly worded public statements, as long as US/SK forces don't cross the Yalu. They don't want to go directly into a shooting war with the US because of the economic damage that would ensue. Lil' Kim made his bed, and now he's got to deal with it. The Kim Dynasty falls. South Korea has the epic and extremely difficult task of integrating NK into its economy and political system. SK is militarily stable but economically and socially on the brink for at least 20 years rebuilding as a unified Republic of Korea.

"Van D. Hipp, Jr. is Chairman of American Defense International, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in government affairs, business development and public relations. He is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army and currently serves on Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union and The National Capitol Board of The Salvation Army."

[i.imgur.com image 250x285]

Much like earnings reports, where all the useful information is tucked away in the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements, the best way to read any "call to arms" is by first scrolling to the end of the document, and then slowly working your way back up.

THIS.

This is the entire point of this drivel (FTFA):

"Unfortunately, President Obama has severely cut missile defense and last year announced plans to decommission Missile Field 1 at Fort Greely. Originally, there were to be three silo fields housing interceptors. Today, Fort Greely is down to one. The time is now for the administration to reverse its decision. "

Yep. Every city I've ever lived in had at least one Soviet missile pointed at it. If it wasn't a state capital it was next to a military base ot two, or it was an important shipping port. I grew up diving under my desk once a month to make sure I knew how to avoid being blown to bits. These modern pants-shiatting cowards make me sick. North Korea is a farking joke.

While OSINT is a very valid intelligence discipline, you have to be able to discriminate valid information against propaganda. Signal to noise.

If it's on FOX News, it's noise. They've spent the last 12 years, most of their life as a "news" channel, in wartime-mode, telling Real Americans to be afraid. An outbreak of peace is the last thing they want, of course they want to stir the pot, keep people afraid (this time of NK since we won Iraq and Afghanistan is heading into the final round).

Anyway, if NK did conduct an EMP airburst over the pacific, yeah, Hawaii would be hosed. . .but then NK as a regime would have on the scale of hours to days left. They have no ability to last in a shooting war past the first day. They have no food, minimal fuel, minimal spare parts, obsolete hardware. The most they can do is a devastating initial artillery barrage directed at Seoul. . .and then they go down hard.

Darth_Lukecash:They are on a border with China., who will absolutely not let us do anything to them

You really think that? It's not 1953 anymore, and China needs us and our money more than it needs NK and their embarrassing parasitism.

China just wants NK to sit down, shut up and be nice, and not screw things up. The Kim Dynasty can't even do that. Did you catch the part where senior Communist Party of China officials were saying in public last week that the PRC should re-evaluate whether it even supports NK at all? In a nation with public media as tightly controlled as China, that was no accident.

Twilight Farkle:Much like earnings reports, where all the useful information is tucked away in the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements, the best way to read any "call to arms" is by first scrolling to the end of the document, and then slowly working your way back up.

"The most important part of any message is the name of the messenger."- J.R. "Bob" DobbsThree-Fisted Tales of "Bob"

The turd that wrote that article is not from OSIS, in any way, shape or form. I'm sure the Open Source Intelligence Service is working on tracking what NoKo is up to, but no one would try to rely on whatever they can glean. NoKo doesn't exactly have a free press or open borders, so most of the intelligence that can be gathered on them has to come by SigInt and IMINT.

Frederick:Twilight Farkle: Much like earnings reports, where all the useful information is tucked away in the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements, the best way to read any "call to arms" is by first scrolling to the end of the document, and then slowly working your way back up.

Good point. The reader should be aware of the motivations of the sources.

The red flag (heh) was how it read like a mishmash of the smartest/funniest posts in the threads here over the past week.

If they'd picked one scenario and rolled with it, possibly introducing something not generally known to the hive mind of the internet, it might have been plausible, but by trying to mash up every scenario, including the ones that aren't contingent upon each other, and some of which might be partially/mutually exclusive... no, just no. Not even wrong.

Seriously, integrating Chinese and Russian ICBM controls? Mars Climate Orbiter burned up because Lockheed-Martin worked in Imperial units and JPL worked in metric units, and that was with fat budgets and everyone trying their damndest to make it work.

What could possibly go wrong when the Best Koreans, operating on a shoestring budget, attempt to integrate components from the Russians and the Chinese, both of whom themselves are operate on shoestring budgets...

OK, so an EMP over the Pacific, which might make for a bad day in Hawaii because he doesn't have the range... Wait, it needs to be a device small enough for one of his unreliable launchers to put it into orbit, but reliable enough to guarantee that it'll work even after several days, weeks, or months in orbit when he presses the button directly over the middle of the continental US at the right altitude and under the right conditions...

I can only conclude they're working for someone with an interest in ABM systems, because they could have taken it further. If only they'd also gotten the account from some company specializing in detecting stuff on container ships, because then the EMP missile-of-doom would have been mounted in a hollow-roofed container so that it could be hauled by ship to within 1000 miles of the US coast in order to get it within range. In order to defeat the threat, in addition to an impervious ABM system, the article would have called for thousands of PT boats, each of which has a million-dollar detector array on it, all being cycled through a fleet of a dozen $1B PT-boat-carriers the size of city blocks...

No, wait, I've got another lobbyist on Line 4 here! He's got a $1M check to represent the interests of someone who wants to be prime contractor on a $10B ASW contract! You see, in order to avoid detection by surface assets, the container ship with the missile-in-the-container is actually based on the Japanese-designed I-400 submersible aircraft carrier! They're integrating the designs of the Russians, Chinese, and even those wily Japanese from WW2!

Kim Jong-Un wants nothing out of this saber-rattling beyond some food for his army, but there are still plenty of Americans who have much to gain by convincing their fellow Americans that he wants to go full Un.

Somacandra:The first job of such governments is neither to feed their people nor fuel their army. It is to stay in power against real or perceived enemies. The U.S. and Soviets both had plenty of hungry and homeless people during the Cold War but chose instead to build enough nukes to destroy each other many times over.

Neither country was ever in the dire straits North Korea is in. The only thing that changed is that they got a new leader who needs to appear tough or he's going to get whacked.

The first job of such countries is self preservation and maintaining their power structure. China is ready to smack the sh*t out of them even with the refugee problem they fear. They're bad for business. Fat Kid is f*cking up, big time.

Also, since when are we comparing North Korea with the Soviet Union and the United States?

MrBallou:That sounded convincing and quite alarming at first. Then I got to the paragraph that started with "President George W. Bush understood..." and realized WTF I was reading. The next paragraph started with "Unfortunately, President Obama..."

I have a pretty good idea what came after that.

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Yep. Every city I've ever lived in had at least one Soviet missile pointed at it. If it wasn't a state capital it was next to a military base ot two, or it was an important shipping port. I grew up diving under my desk once a month to make sure I knew how to avoid being blown to bits. These modern pants-shiatting cowards make me sick. North Korea is a farking joke.

When our schools bust Burt the Turtle out of retirement and the emergency alert signal makes the top 40 countdown again I will worry. Until then I will continue to enjoy watching the modern pants-shiatting cowards as they scurry around muttering about the end of the world.

I'm not saying they're a modern, disciplined and funded military threat... but they're still an army, an army with the means to do some damage.

Grow up and stop thinking that a conflict with them could be won by a paintballing team.

This ain't your father's NK army. Their readiness has been falling rapidly since the fall of the Soviet Union and its constant flow of supplies. They simply haven't had the money to pay for training or the expending of ammunition for practice like they were able to before the '90s.

Ed Grubermann:vygramul: Nuclear weapons are not easy. Miniaturization is actually rather difficult to achieve. To give you an idea of how hard nukes are, the Germans in WWII didn't get one largely because they couldn't figure out the electronics. The Germans. Electronics. Not the nuke part, but the electronics to create the symmetrical explosion for the trigger. That's not because the nuke part is easy. It's because the whole thing is hard.

Well, there was the brain-drain thing when they chased out most of the best scientific minds of generation because of the religion they were born into.

True. I take great delight that General Heydrich, Eichmann's boss, died of gangrene, refusing to take sulfa drugs because they were a "Jewish invention."

vygramul:Nuclear weapons are not easy. Miniaturization is actually rather difficult to achieve. To give you an idea of how hard nukes are, the Germans in WWII didn't get one largely because they couldn't figure out the electronics. The Germans. Electronics. Not the nuke part, but the electronics to create the symmetrical explosion for the trigger. That's not because the nuke part is easy. It's because the whole thing is hard.

Well, there was the brain-drain thing when they chased out most of the best scientific minds of generation because of the religion they were born into.

BigBooper:vygramul: Weaver95: GAT_00: Absolute bullshiat. They can't possibly have the miniaturization down to the point where they can fit a nuclear warhead in a missile.

I think its possible. unlikely but very possible. the technology we're talking about is old, stable and well known. we've done well to keep the details secret on nuclear weapons but lets be honest - 70 years is a long time to keep something like that under a rock. granted, the tech is expensive and demanding but...not all that difficult to acquire. with all our attention focused on Iran, the norks could have done it. well, more likely flat out bought it but still.

Nuclear weapons are not easy. Miniaturization is actually rather difficult to achieve. To give you an idea of how hard nukes are, the Germans in WWII didn't get one largely because they couldn't figure out the electronics. The Germans. Electronics. Not the nuke part, but the electronics to create the symmetrical explosion for the trigger. That's not because the nuke part is easy. It's because the whole thing is hard.

Ummmmmmm. That was the 1940's. Electronics have come a ways since then. Sure NORK may not have, but the technology is everywhere.

If the we and the Soviets figured it out 50+ years ago, how hard could it be with today's technology? Sorry, the nuke genie is out of the bottle. It's not about stopping proliferation, it's now about dealing with the ever increasing number of nations with the technology.

We and the Soviets figured out a lot of things 50+ years ago that most countries can't handle. We landed on the moon more than 40 years ago. China only got a man into space recently. Making a nuke isn't easy. Even with today's technology. Sure, Japan and Germany could probably make a nuke in about six months. But not many other countries could.

/Japan tried making their own combat aircraft. It didn't turn out well. Integration is HARD and only a handful of countries can do it fairly well.

vygramul:Weaver95: GAT_00: Absolute bullshiat. They can't possibly have the miniaturization down to the point where they can fit a nuclear warhead in a missile.

I think its possible. unlikely but very possible. the technology we're talking about is old, stable and well known. we've done well to keep the details secret on nuclear weapons but lets be honest - 70 years is a long time to keep something like that under a rock. granted, the tech is expensive and demanding but...not all that difficult to acquire. with all our attention focused on Iran, the norks could have done it. well, more likely flat out bought it but still.

Nuclear weapons are not easy. Miniaturization is actually rather difficult to achieve. To give you an idea of how hard nukes are, the Germans in WWII didn't get one largely because they couldn't figure out the electronics. The Germans. Electronics. Not the nuke part, but the electronics to create the symmetrical explosion for the trigger. That's not because the nuke part is easy. It's because the whole thing is hard.

Ummmmmmm. That was the 1940's. Electronics have come a ways since then. Sure NORK may not have, but the technology is everywhere.

If the we and the Soviets figured it out 50+ years ago, how hard could it be with today's technology? Sorry, the nuke genie is out of the bottle. It's not about stopping proliferation, it's now about dealing with the ever increasing number of nations with the technology.

vygramul:Nuclear weapons are not easy. Miniaturization is actually rather difficult to achieve. To give you an idea of how hard nukes are, the Germans in WWII didn't get one largely because they couldn't figure out the electronics. The Germans. Electronics. Not the nuke part, but the electronics to create the symmetrical explosion for the trigger. That's not because the nuke part is easy. It's because the whole thing is hard.

You can build a simple gun-type fission device real easy, and no fancy electronics needed. Could do it with 1800's technology if you had the refined uranium. Also, can't really be upgraded to to a fusion weapon, certainly not with the Teller-Ulam design.

Problem is, can't miniaturize those devices, way too many basic physics problems (why that technology was pretty much abandoned), they are going to be too big for ICBMs, you'll have to drop it by bomber, and the NK Air Force is NOT the best in the world.

However, you CAN build a nuclear bomb without the electronics, but you need the electronics to take it beyond Trinity/Hiroshima level technology. . .but that's all you need to get the world's attention.

Weaver95:GAT_00: Absolute bullshiat. They can't possibly have the miniaturization down to the point where they can fit a nuclear warhead in a missile.

I think its possible. unlikely but very possible. the technology we're talking about is old, stable and well known. we've done well to keep the details secret on nuclear weapons but lets be honest - 70 years is a long time to keep something like that under a rock. granted, the tech is expensive and demanding but...not all that difficult to acquire. with all our attention focused on Iran, the norks could have done it. well, more likely flat out bought it but still.

Nuclear weapons are not easy. Miniaturization is actually rather difficult to achieve. To give you an idea of how hard nukes are, the Germans in WWII didn't get one largely because they couldn't figure out the electronics. The Germans. Electronics. Not the nuke part, but the electronics to create the symmetrical explosion for the trigger. That's not because the nuke part is easy. It's because the whole thing is hard.

"Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is intelligence collected from publicly available sources. In the intelligence community (IC), the term "open" refers to overt, publicly available sources (as opposed to covert or clandestine sources); it is not related to open-source software or public intelligence. "

I like how the "article" tried to make it sound like this was a real agency or something.

1)Random, unverifiable sources on the internet are really scared of North Korea for random, unverifiable reasons.2)President GWB valiantly kept the yellow hoard at bay3)Cowardly Obama is leaving us vulnurable to attack from North Korea and all of this is His Fault(tm).

Yeah Obama, how dare you, er, well, uhm, basically continue the same policies towards NK as every farking president ever.

I should have known it would be all hyperbole and blovating, but I'm interested in the Korea situation so thought there might(ha) be some new, legit info coming out... nope, just derpproganda.

MrBallou:That sounded convincing and quite alarming at first. Then I got to the paragraph that started with "President George W. Bush understood..." and realized WTF I was reading. The next paragraph started with "Unfortunately, President Obama..."

HotWingAgenda:The turd that wrote that article is not from OSIS, in any way, shape or form. I'm sure the Open Source Intelligence Service is working on tracking what NoKo is up to, but no one would try to rely on whatever they can glean. NoKo doesn't exactly have a free press or open borders, so most of the intelligence that can be gathered on them has to come by SigInt and IMINT.

Yawn. What is this, round 37 of "We're absorutery not kidding, sucka, shiat wirr happen, we tear up treaty, you go down, South Korea, you go down, USA, this time sure, no make bruff this time, sucka!!"

North Korea is a farking joke. They are to international security what the Jacksonville Jaguars are to the NFL, if the Jags were required to play without a quarterback and to have at least 8 long snappers on the field at all times. The greatest threat to their armed forces is farking starvation, and that's while they're at peace.

You go ahead and think that, but when the Red Dawn comes, don't expect me to break you out of the camp.

I'm not even convinced of that. And even Israel had to secretly test their miniaturization technology to get it right. I find it beyond incredibly unlikely that NK has progressed to that point.

When I say they have the bomb, I don't mean something that they actually can put on a missile. They've got something they can detonate. We're not talking anything fancy here. Put on truck, drive it to the site, and blammo!

Unless you believe previous test were conventional explosives and they were pretending to launch the bomb...

North Korea is a farking joke. They are to international security what the Jacksonville JaguarsCleveland Browns are to the NFL, if the JagsBrowns were required to play without a quarterback and to have at least 8 long snappers on the field at all times. The greatest threat to their armed forces is farking starvation, and that's while they're at peace.

Weaver95:Further, Dr. Vincent Pry from the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, has recently made a convincing case that North Korea possesses an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) nuclear warhead which would have the ability to take out a national power grid and destroy critical infrastructures throughout the U.S.

The same Dr. Peter Vincent Pry who makes his nut running around screaming "the sky is falling!" about possible EMP attacks? Say it isn't so.

GAT_00:Absolute bullshiat. They can't possibly have the miniaturization down to the point where they can fit a nuclear warhead in a missile.

I

think its possible. unlikely but very possible. the technology we're talking about is old, stable and well known. we've done well to keep the details secret on nuclear weapons but lets be honest - 70 years is a long time to keep something like that under a rock. granted, the tech is expensive and demanding but...not all that difficult to acquire. with all our attention focused on Iran, the norks could have done it. well, more likely flat out bought it but still.

Further, Dr. Vincent Pry from the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, has recently made a convincing case that North Korea possesses an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) nuclear warhead which would have the ability to take out a national power grid and destroy critical infrastructures throughout the U.S.

they might do better by zapping Japan during the height of daily trading. one good pulse and a couple billion in stock transactions goes *poof*. oh sure they'll eventually get the data back but by that point you've achieved your goal of world wide market instability. follow that up with an EMP somewhere along the west coast of the US (washington state or a city in California, dealers choice) and everyone will go into a tailspin panic that will far outstrip the damage Nkorea would be able to achieve via military conquest. chaos and panic, market instability, and everyone goes nuts. bonus points for racking off some missiles towards Taiwan, just because hey - why not right?

Mind you, NKorea will promptly cease to exist as a country shortly afterwards...but if they really WANT to go all stabby they could do it.